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Shorewood wins at
Death by Dessert
SPORTS — B
INSIDE — A3
127TH YEAR ❘ ISSUE NO. 9
❘ FEBRUARY 18, 2017 ❘ $1.00
SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890
FLORENCE, OREGON
MARK BRENNAN/SIUSLAW NEWS
Patricia Immel, of Wellspring Clinic in Florence,
is providing acupuncture treatments to the
public to help people reduce the use of opi-
oids in the treatment of pain.
P EACE H ARBOR COULD
Wellspring Clinic, PeaceHealth
team up to provide
relief alternatives to opioids
FACE CHOPPY SEAS
M
NED HICKSON/SIUSLAW NEWS
PeaceHealth Peace Harbor Medical Center, 400 Ninth St., is Florence’s largest health care provider.
Area registered nurses have been working without a contract since Feb. 1
O
regon Nurses Association
(ONA) member nurses at
PeaceHealth Peace Harbor
Medical Center have been negotiating
for better terms in a new contract since
Nov. 30.
The previous contract expired Dec.
31 and a 30-day extension lapsed Jan.
31. The 75 Peace Harbor ONA mem-
bers have been working without a con-
tract since that date.
According to Peace Harbor Hospital regis-
tered nurse and ONA negotiating team mem-
ber Sandy Fleetwood, the major negotiating
points between the nurses and PeaceHealth
are healthcare benefits, wage and hour issues,
recruitment and retention and security.
The first two two-day bargaining sessions
have resulted in little or no progress on these
key issues, according to Fleetwood.
“It’s not Peace Harbor, it is PeaceHealth’s
corporate office we are getting pushback
from. Our administrative staff here at Peace
Harbor is very supportive of the nurses. It is
the corporate people we are negotiating
with,” she said.
Kevin Snyder, PeaceHealth Assistant Vice-
President of Strategic Communications said,
“PeaceHealth has, and continues to negotiate,
B Y J ACK D AVIS AND N ED H ICKSON
Siuslaw News
in good faith. We have responded to most, if
not all, proposals from the union.”
ONA Peace Harbor negotiator Gary Aguia
said, “PeaceHealth negotiators are not budg-
ing. They are not moving. They are being
tough negotiators. Other than a couple of
insignificant things about job title changes,
they haven’t really moved on anything.
Approximately six years ago, PeaceHealth
cancelled the healthcare plan for Peace
Harbor and replaced it with one being used at
other PeaceHealth facilities.
Fleetwood said, “We want to go back to an
older set of health insurance benefits we used
to have. A few contracts ago, we had really
good health insurance benefits. Then we went
to the ‘global PeaceHealth’ insurance plan.”
Aguia said, “We would like to see health-
care insurance that is more comparable to
other (hospital) facilities in our region.”
According to Fleetwood, the nurses at
Peace Harbor receive up to 5 percent less in
salary than nurses at other Oregon hospitals.
“(PeaceHealth) has offered a one percent
increase in pay. Peace Harbor is about five
percent below other hospitals in the state.
A one-percent increase wouldn’t even get
us to that five percent,” she said.
Like most nurses, the nurses at Peace
Harbor work as hourly employees, not
salaried.
Fleetwood said the previous contract had
no limit to the amount of overtime a nurse
could be required to work, and no limit to the
amount of “on- call” or “off-call” time. On-
call is when a nurse must be available to
come in at a moment’s notice; off-call is the
length of time the hospital can tell nurses
they aren’t needed
“We work really hard for weeks or months
and are exhausted, and then we get called off
for a couple of weeks and there is no money
coming in,” said Fleetwood. “They expect us
to use our vacation time to fill in those days
that they call us off.”
Nurse recruitment and retention is a grow-
ing problem across the country and especial-
ly in rural community medical facilities.
Fleetwood said that in the new contract,
nurses at Peace Harbor would like to see
something to address recruitment and reten-
tion of nurses.
“If we can’t recruit and retain a quality
staff, then it is hard for us to maintain those
high standards,” said Fleetwood.
See
NURSES 7A
hosts multi-cultural
A r o un d th e wo r ld i n j us t 1 da y PTA
event at middle school
F
lorence
Community
Parent Teacher Associa-
tion (PTA) is extending
an invitation for Siuslaw stu-
dents, parents and community
members to join them and go
“Around the World in a Day”
during the PTA’s first multi-
cultural event.
The free event will take
place next Saturday, Feb. 25,
from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at
Siuslaw Middle School and is
open to the public.
“Our goal is to bring stu-
dents, parents and community
members together to provide
education on cultures from
around the world while build-
ing social connections with the
schools and our community,”
said event chairwoman Diane
McCalmont. “Through food,
music, arts and dance we hope
to introduce our community to
the world and cultures that lie
beyond our coast — and have
fun while doing it!”
The event will feature finger
foods from Mexican, Asian,
German,
Italian
and
Americana-style cuisines as
well as a variety of entertain-
ment, including belly dancers,
Native Education drums and
dancers and Tribal flutist
Nathalie Picard.
Artistic demonstrations and
displays will cover basket
weaving, beading, origami,
Scandinavian and belly dance
instruction and much more.
All attendees will be entered
in a door prize drawing, as well
as have the opportunity to hear,
taste, feel and see cultures
from around the world at no
cost.
For more information, like
the Florence Community PTA
on Facebook, or call Diane
McCalmont at 541 999-9692.
any Oregonians have a problem with pain.
More precisely, they have a problem with the
prescriptions that they receive for their pain.
According to the Oregon
B Y M ARK B RENNAN
Health Authority (OHA),
Siuslaw News
three Oregonians a week
die from prescription opi-
oid abuse. That is one of the major reasons the
Oregon American Medical Association conference
last year had a single agenda item, “Oregon’s
Opioid Epidemic.”
Fortunately, there is a fledgling program in
Florence available as an alternative approach to
pain management.
Points of Grace is a joint effort of PeaceHealth
Peace Harbor Hospital and The Wellspring Clinic.
The program offers pain treatment that does not
use pharmaceuticals, but uses one of the world’s
oldest medical traditions, acupuncture, to manage
pain.The program uses the age old Chinese tech-
nique of “Ear Acupuncture” to achieve its results.
The Points of Grace program was developed and
is managed by the founder of Wellspring, Patricia
Immel, a licensed acupuncturist and certified
herbalist.
See
TREATMENT 7A
CRIME
Lane County Circuit
Court charges Randy
Clay to 44 years
On Tuesday, Florence resident Randy Clay was
sentenced by a Lane County Circuit Court to 44
years for sexually abus-
S TAFF R EPORT
ing two teenage girls.
Siuslaw News
Clay was arrested
Sept. 6 by Florence
police, who searched his home and interviewed
him after conducting earlier interviews with two
under-age victims.
Details surrounding the arrest of the 61-year-
old man were made public after a search warrant
was unsealed in October in Lane County Circuit
Court.
At that time, Florence Police Commander John
Pitcher said, “A victim disclosed what happened
to a relative and that relative contacted us.”
Police charged Clay with multiple counts of
sexual abuse, coercion and using a child in a dis-
play of sexually explicit conduct.
Clay has since been held in the Lane County Jail.
INSIDE
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THIS WEEK ’ S
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2 S ECTIONS ❘ 20 P AGES
C OPYRIGHT 2017
SENTENCE 7A
CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK
‘Points of Grace’
clinic offers drug-
free treatment